Scientific, spiritual, angry?

This poll is a bit daft: What kind of atheist are you?

I tried it anyway, and I disagree with the agnostic score. I am not agnostic. I am 100% certain that no deities of any description exist, ever have existed outside invented concepts, or ever will exist.

Although I recognize that it is not logically possible to disprove a negative, including the negative of Russell's orbiting teapot, it does not follow that we should assume that failure of disproof constitutes proof. That is, the logical impossibility of proving that God, or an orbiting teapot, or any other nonexistent whatever, does not exist does not mean that we should assume that this leaves any room for the actual existence of any supernatural deity or orbiting teapot or whatever.

Only a theoretical purist would concede that there is a vanishingly miniscule possibility that the supernatural entity invented by the writers of the Bible actually exists. The utter lack of evidence combined with the fact that the supernatural is an artificially contrived category indicates that there is no call for disproof. Like Russell's teapot, deities have been repeatedly and demonstrably invented, and often abandoned, by humans for reasons peculiar to human purposes.

Scientific Atheist 92%
Spiritual Atheist 58%
Angry Atheist 42%
Apathetic Atheist 42%
Agnostic 25%
Militant Atheist 25%
Theist 8%

The 8% theist bit? I'm sufficiently open-minded that if irrefutable evidence for the existence of a supernatural entity were to present itself to me, then I'd be open to belief.

I'm safe, though. Anything that could present itself to me would have to manifest in the physical world, and as soon as anything manifests in the physical world, then that thing is physical and not supernatural. So, even though I'd be open to being convinced by incontrovertible evidence, there can never be a physical manifestation of a supernatural agency. Theists argue against this position, as of course they must if they wish to retain their emotional beliefs, but they are, not to put too fine a point on it, utterly incorrect in their specially contrived arguments.

Home

No comments: